Discussion

Fee accounts

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019724.html

Credits: Jeremy Rubin

This is a mechanism for paying fees for transactions in the mempool without changing the transaction. Related to sponsor transactions which can contribute fees to another transaction.

  • Does being able to pay fees for a transaction in the mempool solve problems for anyone here?

RBF policy

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019817.html

Credits: Gloria Zhao

Bitcoin core has to have a policy for what to do when it sees a transaction spending the same input as one already in its mempool.

  • Are you concerned about pinning attacks affecting software you run or your business?
  • What are the priorities for transaction replacement policy? Should bitcoin core be aware of common applications like the Lightning Network?

Github repo personnel change

Andrew Chow became a maintainer and started merging changes into bitcoin’s master branch.

Stateful scripts in the UTXO model

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-December/019722.html

Credits: Bram Cohen, Billy Tetrud

In this discussion, the author sketches what he thinks is a minimal changeset to bring expressive covenants (and capabilities) to bitcoin. Two of the primary concerns are a need for an explicit descendent relationship between inputs and outputs in a transaction and the cost of repeating scripts on chain for every output that uses them.

  • Any thoughts on the design of Chia’s scripting system? Are there any features that you want to patch into bitcoin?

OP_TXHASH and OP_CSFS enable CTV and APO

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019813.html

Credits: Russel O’Connor

  • OP_TXHASH pops a flag off the stack and then pushes a transaction digest computed according to that flag onto the stack
  • OP_CSFS pops a key, message digest, and sig from the stack and checks them

Devs can implement CTV and APO functionality using these opcodes:

  • CTV: <FLAG_CTV> OP_TXHASH OP_EQUALVERIFY with <TARGET_TXHASH> on the stack
  • APO: <FLAG_APO> OP_TXHASH <PUBKEY> OP_CSFS with <SIG> on the stack

OP_CTV and DLCs

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2022-January/019808.html

Credits: Lloyd Fournier

OP_CTV can significantly reduce the amount of computation required to set up a DLC. It is already possible to commit to a different key for each outcome in the script tree of a taproot outcome. OP_CTV makes it possible to commit to a spending transaction in each tapleaf as well. This enforces the payout.

Security

Polkit bug

https://github.blog/2021-06-10-privilege-escalation-polkit-root-on-linux-with-bug/

An unprivileged user can execute commands as root. Mitigate by updating to get a recent version of polkit.

Ubuntu vuln

https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2022-0185

An unprivileged user can execute commands as root. Mitigate with

sysctl -w kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=0

or patch your kernel.

The plausibly deniable database

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=6307

A secret store optimized for sharing decoy secrets under duress.

Wormhole hack

https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/02/02/blockchain-bridge-wormhole-suffers-possible-exploit-worth-over-250m/

The attacker switched a real utility contract for a false one and forged signatures on Solana.

Data

Address reuse

https://blog.bitmex.com/bitcoin-address-re-use-statistics/

Address re-use has declined a little over the last 5 years, but remains high. About half of outputs pay to a reused address. Most address reuse by volume comes from transactions that reuse one or more adresses from their inputs. As much as 80% of bitcoin transfers by volume create a new output with the same script as an input.

Electrum server performance

https://sparrowwallet.com/docs/server-performance.html

Credits: Craig Raw

Sparrow lead developer Craig Raw benchmarked several Electrum server implementations. He documents a strong time-space trade-off, where the implementation, Fulcrum, with the largest on-disk footprint had disproportionately better performance.

Projects

Info & Education

Bitcoin design guide

https://bitcoin.design/guide

This site maps out the most common user flows. It provides context to understand why the flows look the way they do. It also includes some research on bitcoin users, including what aspects of using bitcoin cause friction.

The simple lightning newsletter

https://simplelightning.com

Politics

https://github.com/bitcoin-0/btc0

This repository is a group of technology professionals organizing to end bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more broadly via political operations.